GRAW2 picks up immediately after the events of the first game, though youneedn't have played it to understand what's going on. Mexican rebelshave some nukes and are setting up shop next to the Texas border, andyou, as a member of an elite U.S. Army Special Forces unit, must stopthem. While the PC version features entirely new levels andenvironments, it does lift many of the story elements and voice-oversfrom the Xbox 360 version. In essence, this is basically a retelling ofthe Xbox 360 game.

The major difference between the two versions isthat the Xbox 360 is much more action focused, while the PC is a lotmore simulation heavy. It's a huge difference. You can sprint your waythrough the Xbox 360 game, knowing that you can heal up easily wheneveryou hit a resupply point. In the PC version, the pace is a lot slowerand more methodical. If you try to run-and-gun through you'll get cutdown within seconds. It's all about moving slowly, using cover, andsuppressing the enemy with cover fire. You have a fairly small healthbar, and it can be drained relatively quickly. Even worse, a hit in thewrong place will kill you no matter what, so the PC version is verymuch one shot, one kill. And if you do manage to find a place toresupply, you do not heal.

While this kind ofrealistic authenticity is the hallmark of Ghost Recon games on the PC,GRAW 2 is a lot tougher than its predecessors. Part of that is thenature of the gameplay, which is very unforgiving, but it's also due tothe huge size of the levels. You have to carefully ration your healthbar or else you'll find yourself in a bad spot. For instance, if youtake a couple of hits early on, it's usually best to just start themission over because odds are you'll never survive the middle and laterparts of the level, especially since you can't heal. There is a quicksave and a quick load that you'll need to use early and often, asyou'll get cut down without warning a lot. And this was on the easiestdifficulty setting. Trying to play at the default difficulty is murder.

Ifthat weren't bad enough, GRAW 2 also likes to put you in a lot ofreally difficult--dare we say unfair--tactical situations. The endlevel has a helicopter drop you off in the middle of a bridge, with oneend garrisoned by Mexican rebels armed with rocket launchers and heavymachine guns. If you manage to survive that, you'll next face an attackby troops and vehicles, and then have to take down a helicopter, andthen attack the other end of a bridge defended by snipers and machinegunners, and so on. It's a lot to tackle in a single mission, and itwill undoubtedly require a lot of trial and error.

You do have up tothree other soldiers at your command, as well as various supportelements such as aerial recon drones and the ability to call in airstrikes or artillery. The squad controls are fairly simple becausethey're context sensitive. Simply move the cursor onscreen and you'lltell the squad to move to that spot or attack it. Unfortunately, theartificial intelligence, while sharp, isn't sharp enough. It's prettygood about using cover, but nowhere near as good as a human mind. It'snot hard for your guys to get cut down behind you, which at times makesthem more of a hindrance. The better missions in the game are the onesthat have you going almost lone wolf. It's during these levels that thePC version shines, as you don't need to worry about micromanaging thesquad and can go around stalking the enemy.

The PC version doesallow a bit more freedom in mission setup: you can select the troopersthat go with you, as well as custom-outfit their gear, choosing fromdifferent weapons and accessories, like grenade launchers, scopes, andsilencers. (If a trooper is cut down, he's unavailable for latermissions.) The only thing that this mode needs is a way to save aloadout so you can easily outfit your team with the same gear. Instead,you have to load out each trooper separately, a somewhat annoyingprocess.

Aside from the sheer difficulty of the game, the other hitagainst the PC version is its drabness. The game recycles much of thetextures and buildings from its predecessor, so the slums of Juarezlook almost identical to the industrial areas of Mexico City. The gameis dominated by its brown-and-yellow palette, and the color scheme isso bland and lifeless that it sucks a lot of life out of the otherwisesolid graphic engine. You'd be hard-pressed to find something in thegame that's a bright red or green or blue. Even the skies feeloppressive. The Xbox 360 did a much better job of actually creatingenvironments that felt like they had some color and culture to them.The PC version feels like it's set in what appears to be the dullestand driest place on Earth.

The multiplayer options are nicelyfleshed out. There are some cooperative gameplay levels, though thesingle-player campaign itself isn't playable in co-op. Then there'sdeathmatch and team modes, such as hamburger hill (one team holds ahill as long as possible against the other) as well asrecon-versus-assault, which is an objective-based mode that tasks oneteam on defense and the other on offense. There's enough here to keepyou busy for a good, long while, which is sort of the point. Andmultiplayer has always been one of Ghost Recon's strengths.

Whilethe difficulty will undoubtedly be one of the things that the dedicatedfans of the series will look forward to, GRAW 2 raises the challengebar to a new level. That said, if you're looking for a relatively quickand painless shooting experience, look elsewhere. If you want toexperience a brutal battlefield where death can happen suddenly, thencheck out GRAW 2